What are you working on? February 2013

David_Gerard

This is the bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:

What are you working on?

Here are some guidelines:

Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
Talk about your goals for the project.
Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
Link to your work if it's linkable.

This is the bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:

What are you working on?

Here are some guidelines:

Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
Talk about your goals for the project.
Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
Link to your work if it's linkable.

I currently working for a large game company, and while I have no plans of leaving, I feel as if at some point I would like to branch off and work on a more self-motivated project.

The cost analysis of this isn't easy for me. My position in the game industry is somewhat atypical; I joined one of the most promising teams in the world directly out of college, and have since done good work on our recently released project. From within the studio, advice on where to direct my career seems pretty risk adverse. We have high paying, extremely stable jobs which aren't guaranteed to be reclaimable if we exit, and with rewards becoming more lucrative the longer we stay. Two questions for you then:

Why did you recently quit your job? Is you main motivation along the lines of expectations of future earnings, a satisfaction in the intellectual worth of projects you choose to work on, or satisfaction in the worth of your product to others?

Where would you have ranked yourself in terms of your success in the large-scale game industry? I have a hard time comparing my situation to others, because as mentioned I feel as though my case is atypical and thus with potential for more higher payoffs if I choose rightly with my future. Having worked only a year and the half in the industry, I will be giving a talk at GDC this year about work done on our last AAA console title, which seems on the surface like something to make that case, although I recognize the major risk of self-aggrandizement here.

What city do you live in, if I may ask?

Your situation does seem unusual, so you'll have to do your own research and analysis. Speaking for myself, I am not strongly motivated by money beyond the amount required to support my standard of living, plus a healthy amount of buffer. Instead I have been motivated more and more by novelty and the opportunity to learn: by, in a word, curiosity (which is one of the 12 virtues of rationality, dontcha know ;) ). It also helps to be working on something I care about, have control over, etc. And I see this as a stepping stone towards projects that might have... (read more)